You can again spot them on the streets, mainly in Kathmandu and Pokhara—the Chinese tourists are back.

After four years, Chinese arrivals in Nepal have crossed the six-digit mark, reaching 101,879 in 2024, a 67 percent year-on-year increase.

With improved growth in Chinese arrivals, Nepal welcomed 1.14 million tourists last year, a bump of 13 percent over the same period in 2023.

However, the arrivals fell short of the pre-pandemic levels.

Travel trade entrepreneurs said Chinese arrivals experienced a robust resurgence in 2024. Key destinations worldwide are once again welcoming Chinese tourists.

Nepal is among them.

Beijing declared 2025 “Visit Nepal Year in China”, an offer that officially came during then-prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s China visit in September. This has enthused the industry.

Tour operators say top Chinese diplomats have managed to create a buzz. But no one knows how the ambitious campaign will succeed amid the country’s current problems.

Apart from air and road safety, the bad news for potential travellers is that ticket prices will likely stay high for several months.

The Kathmandu-Shanghai-Kathmandu airfare is Rs150,000.

“The airfare is expensive. It’s exorbitant. Under these circumstances, it will be a daydream to further increase the number of Chinese tourists,” said Kishore Raj Pandey, chairman of Saathi Nepal Travel and Tours who was the first person to bring Chinese tourists to Nepal in 2001.

“In various meetings, Chinese top diplomats say they intend to bring at least 500,000 visitors from China this year,” said Pandey. “But I wonder: How?”

“There is no concrete plan either from Kathmandu or Beijing.”

There’s more to the story of expensive flights. Nepal has some of the highest aviation costs in the region. According to airline industry officials, jet fuel in Nepal, which is cross-subsidised with cooking gas, is 70 percent more expensive than in neighbouring countries.

Airlines also pay hefty fees for ground handling at Kathmandu airport. In 2022, the civil aviation body raised the passenger service tax fourfold for Indians and threefold for third-country tourists.

These costs inevitably get passed on to travellers.

Tourism is vital for Nepal’s economy, and the means to bring them are crucial.

According to the annual World Travel and Tourism Council research report, Nepal’s tourism sector generated Rs327.9 billion ($2.5 billion) in revenue and supported 1.19 million jobs directly and indirectly in 2023.

For Nepal, Beijing wants to start a new chapter with soft economic diplomacy by implementing the Belt and Road Initiative. The BRI envisions expanding Nepal’s trade, attracting foreign investment, and improving its connectivity.

Chinese Ambassador to Nepal, Chen Song, told the Post that Beijing has planned several initiatives to encourage Chinese tourists to visit Nepal.

He said plans are to promote Nepal “through a series of activities, more cultural exchange programmes, more attractive packages and more flights”.

To realise these numbers, tour operators say there should be at least 10 daily flights between Nepal and China.

“Sending 500,000 tourists is not a big deal for Beijing,” said Vijay Shrestha, vice-president at Himalaya Airlines, a Nepal-Tibet joint venture. “Beijing took a similar initiative before, but Covid was a spoiler.”

For the first time, Chinese arrivals in Nepal exceeded 100,000 in 2013, mainly due to improved air links between the two countries. In 2014, Nepal received 123,805 Chinese visitors.

However, the earthquake and India’s blockade caused arrivals from China to drop to 64,675 individuals in 2015.

The surface road at the Tatopani border point, where Nepal used to welcome many Chinese tourists, was also blocked.

Nepal announced ‘free visa’ for Chinese tourists on December 25, 2015, giving them the same treatment as South Asian visitors. In January 2016, the scheme was implemented to revive flagging arrivals.

From then on, tourist arrivals from China started rising steadily. Nepal saw the strongest growth, of 46.8 percent, in tourist arrivals from China, with the overall number reaching 153,633 visitors in 2018.

In October 2019, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Nepal, raising hopes in the local tourism industry that there would be a surge in Chinese tourist numbers.

Xi was the first Chinese president to come to Nepal since 1996. During his trip, he said he would encourage Chinese tourists to visit Nepal. “Nepal is the first South Asian country to be designated an approved destination for Chinese tourists,” Xi wrote in an article published in Nepali newspapers during his visit.

In 2019, Nepal received a record 169,543 Chinese tourists. But soon, Covid hit, and everything changed.

“It’s a state policy to send the Chinese to Nepal,” said Shrestha. “China may launch incentives to boost outbound travel, particularly to Nepal.”

Tour operators say that despite the macroeconomic headwinds, Chinese citizens are still willing to spend on travel-related experiences.

Last week, China awarded a range of civil servants nationwide their first significant pay rise in years to boost morale and spur spending.

Lump sum payments to government workers will put money in their pockets right before the Chinese New Year and Spring Festival holidays.

This year, the Chinese New Year, known as the Spring Festival, begins on January 29. It is a significant celebration in Chinese culture.

The New Year holiday has been extended to eight days (January 28 to February 4) as part of a government effort to encourage tourism.

A noticeable trend this year is an earlier departure of Chinese travellers, with some starting their trips as early as January 18, according to reports.

But Nepal needs to fix a few things to appear more welcoming.

Its only operating international airport, Kathmandu, is closed for 10 hours a day until March 1, and the Civil Aviation Authority has no justification for this.

The Chinese-built Pokhara airport has had no international flights except for a few chartered Chinese ones during the Dragon Boat Festival in the lake city.

Bhairahawa also has an international airport, but foreign airlines made a handful of flights and eventually stopped.

Beijing has promised to operate in these two new airports, one built with Chinese funding and the other by a Chinese contractor. Many see this offer through a geopolitical lens.

During the third Nepal Investment Summit held in Kathmandu on April 28 last year, Luo Zhaohui, chairman of the China International Development Cooperation Agency, announced: “The Chinese government is making arrangements to start new flights from China to Nepal’s two new international airports—Pokhara and Lumbini.”

However, except for a few chartered flights, there are no commercial flights from China.

Shrestha of Himalaya Airlines said they are scheduled to operate flights to Lhasa from Pokhara starting in March.

According to UN World Tourism Organisation data, the Chinese outbound tourism market was a global phenomenon in 2019. Chinese travellers made 155 million trips abroad and spent an impressive $255 billion.

This level of expenditure positioned China as the world's largest source of international tourists, fueling economies worldwide.

On New Year’s Eve, Shanghai’s Exit-Entry Administration Bureau extended its working hours by three hours to accommodate a surge in passport and travel document requests.

Reports showed that the service extension, available until 8 pm, was implemented in response to the increasing demand from citizens planning trips during the New Year and upcoming Spring Festival holidays.

“With the announcement of the Nepal Visit Year campaign by Beijing, we have also expedited our initiative,” said Deepak Raj Joshi, CEO of Nepal Tourism Board, the country’s tourism promotional body.

“But we are not exactly aware of what Beijing is doing.”

Beijing has already launched several initiatives in Nepal. The four key programmes are the Dragon Boat Festival; the cross-country race in Pokhara, which has concluded; the second edition of the Lumbini International Peace Marathon, which will continue; and a cultural programme has been planned to mark the Chinese New Year.

“We [Nepal Tourism Board] have planned a social media campaign in different parts of China. This will be done through the China National Tourism Administration [CNTA], a Chinese government authority responsible for developing tourism affairs, plus Nepal’s embassy and consuls in China. The campaign is now getting momentum,” said Joshi.